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Two weeks ago, in the wake of Ryan Block’s nightmare of a cancellation call, Comcast Chief Operating Officer Dave Watson issued an internal memo saying that the recording was "painful to listen to." He exhorted his employees to "do better." Unfortunately for Watson, another call surfaced on Sunday that will likely be just as painful: a fellow named Tim Davis called Comcast to contest some bogus charges on his bill and only managed to get them refunded because he had recordings of previous Comcast calls.

According to the write-up by The Consumerist, Davis had moved to a new apartment and transferred his Comcast service to his new residence, opting to perform a self-install rather than have Comcast send out a technician. After a few weeks without problems, his Internet connection started dropping out, and a technician was dispatched. Comcast determined that the problems had to do with outside wiring rather than anything under Davis’ control, and thus the company told him that the truck roll and service were gratis.

Tim Davis and the Comcastic Customer Service Call.

(Warning: the above video has some strong language, and you should probably put on headphones if you're going to listen to it at work.)

Davis, demonstrating excellent foresight, recorded the customer service phone call where this was discussed. This proved fortunate when the month’s bill arrived, padded out with $181.94 of extra charges.

Comcast charged Davis for a "failed self install," as well as a "failed video SIK" (that’s "self-install kit") and a wireless network setup. The company was gracious enough to apply a service discount for the wireless setup—which was fortunate, because the technician who visited Davis had performed no such activity.

Davis did what any angry customer would do: he called Comcast to hash things out. The resulting set of calls is a comedy of terrible customer service. The first representative argued with Davis, then put him on hold for an hour. Davis ended that call and started a new one, this time escalating to a "supervisor" (which, as we’ve discussed, is usually just another regular customer service rep with no additional power or authority).

The supervisor continued the argument, insisting that Comcast had already given Davis more than enough discounts (the other $49.99 "service discount" underneath the failed install lines on the bill) and saying that the remaining $82 of extra charges were Davis’ responsibility. The rep then tried to upsell Davis to discounted "BLAST+" Internet service as a sop. The actual charges, said the rep, were valid and thus impossible to remove.

Further Reading

Davis then dropped his bomb: he forced the rep to listen to the call he had previously recorded, in which the Comcast rep told Davis the service visit would be free.

Like a kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar, the Comcast rep tells Davis that she’ll have to "investigate" and call Davis back. Miraculously, the callback actually does occur—in it, the rep tells Davis that Comcast has agreed to refund the charges, but only because Davis had the recording.

"We try to negotiate," explains the rep, "and again, that is a valid charge."

The rep closes with a flat-out admission that the only reason Davis got his money back was because he had that recording.

In spite of assurances from top Comcast executives like Dave Watson, Comcast is proving too large a ship to steer effectively—empty pronouncements for more attentive customer service can echo down from leadership all day long, but there are just too many moving parts in the Comcast machine for it to matter. Dozens of layers of management and the entrenched system of sales metrics-based compensation leveled on customer-facing employees ensures that, without more drastic action, any call to action from the top will be grossly mutated by the time it reaches the folks on the phones. Calls like this will continue to be the result.

Update: Comcast has contacted Ars with the following statement on Davis' customer service adventure:

This is not the type of experience we want our customers to have, and we will reach out to Mr. Davis to apologize to him. Our policy is not to charge for service visits that are related to problems with our equipment or network. We are looking into this to understand what happened and why it happened.

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Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com